Build a Boss (design your own encounter)

I'm interested to hear what type of bosses people would like to see. If you were a Blizzard encounter designer what kind of mechanics would you introduce. Literally, design a boss, the playing field where the encounter takes place, what the boss looks like, what features or uniqueness does it offer that separates it from other bosses, what mechanics would your boss encounter have, what would the phase transitions have, and why in your opinion would you like to see this boss?
Use previous bosses to compare a certain mechanic to expand on if you want.

Here's mine:
In burning crusade players, or raiders were challenged as content was defeated by specifically being able to adhere to a specific enrage timer, on top of a few varying boss mechanics. Later in the content these mechanics would diversify into phases. For instance Supremus phase 1 tank and spank deal with fire trails on people and kite them in a direction that wouldn't affect phase 2; the kite phase. Phase 2 would introduce volcanoes spewing fire making players have to target it and kill them, this took damage off the boss while being kited slowly reducing the progress to beat the enrage timer. Resulted in players better gearing their overall raid to make that enraged not so determinate. Illidan is also THE prime example of a phase based boss encounter which really set a legacy for future encounters. Sunwell embraced ALL of these aspects while adding individual player performance, introducing a strict CC pattern, assigned interrupts, etc. Especially on the adds. And as we know, when in a raid the add mechanics leading to a boss typically lead to a mechanics the boss will have. As we see in siege of org and other raids. What really set Sunwell up was not just ANY guild could defeat sunwell even under perfect conditions. Brutallus required almost ALL dps to have a minimum of 3k dps or else it was impossible to not be overwhelmed by the fire debuff and hit enrage timer. So positions, assignments, reactions, while maintaining best possible dps output resulted in a kill. Felmyst introduced the same thing while also giving a "luck of the draw" aspect which was her phase transitions when she would fly in the air and the raid would have a difficult time to assume where the raid needed to move due to her mind control breath. Twins, 3rd to last boss in sunwell had a multi boss HP reset mechanic. Similar to Klaxxi, and other bosses. It doesn't matter how much damage you do in cleave, because when you kill one boss, the other boss' health just resets. While each boss requires different mechanics, while their both up the raid has to deal with both, so having to quickly kill one would result in 50% loss in mechanics, for instance.. 2 bosses up = conflagerate and un-avoidable tank stun making the untauntable boss going tothe next highest threat, while whoever had conflagerate could potentially wipe the raid. So you kill the first boss, removes the tank stun mechanic, yet now conflagerate is an issue and a DoT more rapidly builds to players. All of these where "revolutionary" in my opinion to what set the legacy of present day boss mechanics.

Garrosh as though it is easy, introduces ALOT of mechanics, the reason it is easy is because if the raid damage and performance (interupts) are spot on, they never overlap. So you deal with one, dps boss, deal with next, dps boss, phase, dps boss, deal with one quickly, the you could assign people to be on the boss 100% while the rest deal with the mechanics and dps boss after the mechanics are finished.

To me an amazing mechanic boss encounter would have multiple overlapping mechanics that not only relied on the raid reaction to counter, but also on the individual player. Where at any point in time if 1 player messed up their individual responses it was an instant wipe, all while dpsing the boss, reaction to their individual responsibility, and also dealing with a group responsibility, and dealing with overlapping phase transitions. This would make people freeze due to being overwhelmed. Regardless of their dps.

Like have a 3 boss encounter. One applies to tanks, a stacking debuff causing 2 of the 3 adds to have to be tank swapped, each of the 2 would have a unique mechanic the tank would respond to. While avoiding the third boss's affect on the raid. Mellee would have a debuff where the only way to remove would be to dps/ cleave adds a boss would constantly spawn making the debuff be removed "forces dps to not tunnel on bosses" if their debuff reached a certain point it would cause them to radiate raid damage, eventually but quickly wiping a raid if the dps tunneled. The ranged dps would have to CC specific adds that would be called into a fight and would cause those adds to fixate the first person that would engage them resulting in them having to be kited, slowed/CCd, and also having a debuff that could only be removed by killing one of their adds, resulting in a priority add killing in a specific to character class. While healers had to not only heal a tank that was always taking high damage, which the other had to have a specific ability dispelled while having to heal mellee and the raid as the mellee stacks build and the ranged would be receiving the class ability uniqueness. Like a hunter has to let a add hit them once to get a debuff to counter a different debuff, causing a priest to life grip them before the add can attack for a second time. And a phase transition would be no healing and dps focus "frozen time" aspect.. It all sounds like alot at once, which is the point. But if every player had a personal add priority in kill order, cc order, survival order (causing a killed add to remove a debuff in a particular order, or else they couldn't advance to the phase 2) this would show the raid all of their weakest links in their particular responsibility. An encounter would be fun as hell if something like this happened. If 1 person at any point didn't utilize ALL of their class abilities for 100% of the encounter the raid would just stop. This to me would be a guild killer. new and exciting shiny boss mechanics are always fun, but once you beat them, it's like riding a bike. Yet anytime you guys have to come across this encounter, you know it's always up in the air regardless of your gear. Keeping everyone on their toes at all times. I like bosses where you hear people freaking out all at once even if the raid seems to be responding perfectly. After it's done and if your group succeeds it's a HUGE accomplishment, always.

So in a nut-shell. It would be a 3 boss fight, (not shared health pool) while 2 of the 3 bosses would constantly summons multiple adds that can't be tanked, while the other would summon a specific add set that would hit hard and be used to remove boss debuffs on the player. While transitions would occur, and the goal would be to go into each transition with NO debuffs by each player killing their adds because in the transitions there would be no healing, so if 1 person went in without killing their adds, they would be taking damage over time when they cant be healed and hopefully have the cooldowns to survive it but would be very un-likely. Making it so 1 person in the raid could potentially wipe the raid at any time.

I would make 2 of the bosses Gnomish shredders, but would be called (Blaster: mad max of thunder dome reference) both dealing heavy tank damage in the form of a DoT stack, and the other just high constant damage resulting in a tank swap, all the while they would have a rage pool that when reaching a certain point would cause a special debuff to hit random players (25 rage= healing reduction DoT, 30 rage= stacking magic damage DoT, 40 rage= Bleed damage which buffed a non boss add ability 50 rage= movement speed reduction stacking to 100%, 70 rage= would increase player damage done) that last dot would make it almost impossible due to the tanks having to swap (the boss's rage would reset every time the tanks swapped) Making for very unique strats.
And then the third boss that would be active with the 2 blasters would be the "master: also mad max reference" he would be a "smart add" and couldn't be tanked and would debuff players with the worst possible buff given their class. Healing reduction debuffs to closest proximity healers, if no healer was always close in proximity he would just continue to spawn more and more adds to deal with the melee and ranged. This would force your best healer to have to take more debuff of healing reduction to prevent the mellee from being overwhelmed. And depending on when a Melee kills their add (removing their debuffs) this would cause the ranged to have their adds spawned) so you would have to have melee kill adds in a specific order.

The transitional phases would be where the two blasters merge, into a huge blaster, while master hop on top of its "cock-pit" and ALL the debuffs merge into a raid wide effect (increase to damage taken, increase to player damage done, healing reduction, HIGH tank damage, tanks having to split a cleave, then quickly get out of a frontal cone stacking debuff; Bleed damage and armor reduction, stacking. Causing tank swaps. This would be the zerg phase. If players went into this phase with debuffs their debuff would "mutate" into a different effect. Like healing reduction debuff in phase 1= mutate into NO healing received when going back into phase 1 following the phase 2.. Damage increase if the bosses can get the Blasters to 70 rage when they push, that Debuff would result in a permanent damage done buff to all players when they go into the first phase following the phase 2.. Etc.

This boss would be an optional boss. Requiring all bosses to be killed in a raid, resulting in a certain atonement or rep each player needs to be eligible (consistent raid group) to fight the boss. Then after defeating the boss and the rep is exalted for everyone, a doorway unlocks. A new NPC would walk out and talk about a new world where a galactic mastermind was planning on assault on Azeroth, so if you chose to walk through the doorway you would go to a new would (like a outlands/twisting nether HUGE laboratory with the knowledge of the Titans, powered life blood from the universe.. basically if the Titans had an evil scientist, this would be his lab)

Reward: A specific separate tier token (If the raid that unlocked this boss could be like tier 20, this tier would be tier 21 and could be only obtained through defeating this boss) he would drop weapon augments (which would be similar effects to the encounter debuffs) and trinkets which would hold up to 2 augments, and the static stats would "mutate" base off the 2 selected augments that would be infused in them
Example: A trinket;
Equip: causes the player to deal 5% more damage from all abilities stacking to 5 for 10 seconds (25%)
Equip causes the enemy to have a stacking armor reduction debuff up to 10 stacks (50% armor reduction) lasting for 10 seconds
Use: when both effects are at full stacks, the player has a chance to activate "titanic evolution" resulting in 50% armor reduction and 25% damage done for 25 seconds,this effect can overlap with the equip effects.
+ 2,000 stamina
+ 5% stats

So basically the trinket would ramp up and have a 5 second window for the player to activate the trinket, keeping the activation stats active while overlapping the equip effects (100% armor reduction 50% damage done for 10 seconds) so by the time the trinket is done ramping up it can be activated again. So if the player managed this optimally he could keep the effect at 10 stacks 100% of the time and the "use" effect active for 50% of the time.

healers would have different augments, but would really make your raid group focus on optimizing this trinket 1 person at a time.

Once a player receives a empty trinket 1 week, an augment the next, a second augment the third week, they would have to infuse it during the 5th week fight during a phase transition. Once the quest is completed the player and raid would see a Lore/ RP cutscene of them stealing the power of the titans from the lap and once completed the sky in every zone of azeroth would show a translucent image of the player in game for 1 hour. Indication he saved the world and received the power of the titans. Kind of like when a player completes a legendary, like the turn in once defeating Algalon or the Dragonwrath staff from Firelands.

Just think about everything, and try to be the raid leader building a strat and assignments to your raid. To ME, this encounter would be so fun and keep everyone on your toes. Overlapping mechanics, individual player performance that affects the raids success. etc.

I know it's super over the top, but that's the fun of it!!
Sorry that's alot to read, I hope to read some in-depth ones from you!

I feel like this is one of those rose color nostalgia "omg BC was perfect" threads. BC fights were ok and some of them were downright frustrating if you didnt have the gear. Now I haven't done Garrosh on heroic but you are not giving Garrosh (normal) not enough credit. Garrosh is a great fight, its probably the best fight this expansion. It gets harder as the fight progresses. And its not as simple dps > interrupt > dps. Every phase has a new mechanic, and every new phase takes the old mechanic and makes it harder. So not only you have to deal with the new mechanic, you have to survive the old, now stronger mechanic.

As for the perfect fight, I think Heroic Rag was probably the best fight I have ever experienced. If I were to make a boss, I would take elements from H-Rag and mix it with Garrosh. I don't like having to fight adds unless its a mechanic like the Sulfuras split, so I would take that out. I also did not like Garrosh's fluctuating health, so I would take that out too. Basically some how merge Garrosh with ragnaros and call it Ragnarosh or Garnaros. Forgot to mention, try to make it equal 10 mins, more than 10 then it becomes too exhausting.

Woah I need a sec to read through OP but I just wanna say that if I ever designed a raid encounter I'd be so mad if they implemented it in flex or LFR or normal. Anything I design I want to be H.A.R.D.

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My dream boss encounter is like. Actually having a choice to make. Like everything is tuned so you could do things either wayan d have to experiment which one is better.

It'd be something like you have mini-bosses/adds that you have to take out as you work your way up to the real boss. So one tank, one group of DPS, and some healers stick to one mini boss while the other half of the raid starts on another, and they keep alternating mini bosses. Oh and the raids are separated physically so there's none of this "everyone stack" bullshit, the tanks have to keep mini bosses apart from each other.

Then uhhhh something with the main boss having to do with the way you handle him and/or the mini boss that creates a choice.

I feel like this is one of those rose color nostalgia "omg BC was perfect" threads. BC fights were ok and some of them were downright frustrating if you didnt have the gear. Now I haven't done Garrosh on heroic but you are not giving Garrosh (normal) not enough credit. Garrosh is a great fight, its probably the best fight this expansion. It gets harder as the fight progresses. And its not as simple dps > interrupt > dps. Every phase has a new mechanic, and every new phase takes the old mechanic and makes it harder. So not only you have to deal with the new mechanic, you have to survive the old, now stronger mechanic.

As for the perfect fight, I think Heroic Rag was probably the best fight I have ever experienced. If I were to make a boss, I would take elements from H-Rag and mix it with Garrosh. I don't like having to fight adds unless its a mechanic like the Sulfuras split, so I would take that out. I also did not like Garrosh's fluctuating health, so I would take that out too. Basically some how merge Garrosh with ragnaros and call it Ragnarosh or Garnaros. Forgot to mention, try to make it equal 10 mins, more than 10 then it becomes too exhausting.

No, this thread isn't a "Burning Crusade is awesome" thread.. It's a a comparison of how Burning crusade was really the defining moment in Blizzard which set the path, or legacy for the raid encounters we see today. They made a lot of innovative mechanics in burning crusade which really set the tone for the mechanics we see today.

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Originally Posted by Blueobelisk

Woah I need a sec to read through OP but I just wanna say that if I ever designed a raid encounter I'd be so mad if they implemented it in flex or LFR or normal. Anything I design I want to be H.A.R.D.

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My dream boss encounter is like. Actually having a choice to make. Like everything is tuned so you could do things either wayan d have to experiment which one is better.

It'd be something like you have mini-bosses/adds that you have to take out as you work your way up to the real boss. So one tank, one group of DPS, and some healers stick to one mini boss while the other half of the raid starts on another, and they keep alternating mini bosses. Oh and the raids are separated physically so there's none of this "everyone stack" bullshit, the tanks have to keep mini bosses apart from each other.

Then uhhhh something with the main boss having to do with the way you handle him and/or the mini boss that creates a choice.

Would this be a gauntlet type of encounter similar to the split raid group in Thorim in Ulduar? That sounds fun for sure.

A fight where you have to play a PVE version of capturing control points (Arathi Basin, etc):
- There are 4 points, 2 requiring tanks, the other 2 not
- you have to maintain certain amounts of pressure at each point to gain the required points
- infinite waves of mobs come through
- you will generally try to keep 3 of the points in order to gain your score faster, particularly skilled raids can pull off all 4
- if one of your points is lost, you can still potentially win due to your earlier point lead if you maintain a 2/2 split, BUT, every point that the NPCs capture buffs the NPCs at all camps by a certain amount, making it harder on the remaining groups, as well as drawing out the time until victory
- heroic introduces enemy rushes where the NPCs periodically rush a capture point with a series of double waves, this generally requires that group to either float or request backup, the NPCs also never rush a point that your raid have not chosen to occupy, and those particular spots that the NPCs have not chosen to occupy become undermanned while the NPCs are rushing
- also on heroic, once your raid earns enough victory points to win you have to deal with the NPCs final stand at their base with a boss mob

A fight where you play out a game of tower defense:
- players all have a set amount of currency for placing defenses on the gamefield (done through a vehicle console)
- players can give their currency rights to other players if they don't wish to participate in the minigame, tightening the number of players who have control
- players have to go through 5 waves of trash and 1 boss
- each wave has a 1.5min enrage timer (then they despawn, withholding currency from the players), boss wave has a self contained 4 min enrage timer (then wipes raid)
- each wave goes through the defenses first, then players have to personally fight the remainder
- players have the time it takes for the wave to get through the defense maze to place further defenses, players can also start the fight on their own terms
- trash waves get exponentially more difficult to clear/survive
- tower control plays the largest part of mob killing, but the final skirmish with the adds once they reach the players is a good way to snag some more currency to make the later waves easier, this makes it such that you can still overgear the fight to an extent if your raid isn't very good with the tower optimisation, and can do the fight undergeared through very smart tower usage
- the better you do each trash wave, it flows on to making the final boss easier through having more tower damage/debuffing/etc done
- on heroic, certain mobs will attempt to take down your towers, a small team of players will have to be delegated to keeping these adds from doing too much damage to towers personally
- also on heroic, that small team of players will have to deal with multiple minibosses by themselves during the boss wave which attempt to assist the boss by buffing it periodically and aiding its run through the tower maze

A large multiphase titan boss fight (aka sargeras) played out on a massive scale where players spend a portion of the fight increased to massive sizes.

I don't know, some giant in a villa built to suit his size. You'd have to scale furniture and kill giant vermin without him noticing. Once he did notice everyone would have to lay on the CC to keep him incapacitated till he fell asleep. To defeat him, mages would have to chain sheep his wife giant and DKs would have to chain grip her into the kitchen. Meanwhile priests would need to chain mind control the buttler to bring a vorpal axe from the armory and leave it in the kitchen so the wife is killed by the butcher before she lost polymorph. The final fight would just be telling the giant that you just served him his wife. You collect loot from him after a short cutscene of him walking out to the garden and hanging himself.

Alternatively you could just beat them all to death and get less cool rewards.

Ability racial aberration.png Hand of Oblivion — Summons crushing energy upon a target, Inflicting massive damage to it and creates a whirlpool that sucks nearby targets. Once the whirlwind has sucked any targets upon the target it will throw them back within 20 yards and inflict additional shadow damage

Ability deathknight hemorrhagicfever.png Shadow Annihilator — After Shadow Ripper has been directly cast, It leaves an after effect that shoots out a laser that targets a player. Any target hits by the laser will instantly be inflicted 1,000,000 Shadow damage | Only active in Heroic

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png Selfish Motives — Targets two players and only DPS can be affected by it, Once affected for every attack that's done they will inflict 350% of the their damage to the entire raid. This debuff last for 5 seconds

Phase 2 - Agony within another body!

Ability deathknight brittlebones.png Soul Displacement — Swaps all nearby targets souls, Forcing them to play another class within each of the raid for 45 seconds in addition all damage and healing active output is increased by 100%

Ability deathknight boneshield.png Soul Shatter — After the Displacement ends, It shatters the will of all nearby targets. Reducing all damage output by 100% for 15 seconds and healing by 50%

Phase 3 - You aren't your self ahaha!

Ability rogue deadlymomentum.png Breaking Displacements — Completely the same as Soul displacement however, It is a permanent effect rather then 45 seconds

Ability rogue deadliness.png Final Shadows — A channeled spell that unleashes giant shadow bolts upon several of the area's, Inflicting 999,999,999 shadow damage to each of the area's and creates a vortex of shadows

Ability racial aberration.png Staggering Blow — A brutal instant attack that deals massive damage within a frontal cone split by however many targets have been hit

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png Frost Bind — A 3 second channeled spell that freezes the target making it a block of ice pacifying it until the ice has been broken

Ability deathknight desolation.png Shattering frost — Xel'nas shatters an ice block killing the target inside and shoots out ice fragments to the entire raid that inflicts 50% damage in health if an ice block is not broken within 30 seconds

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png Staggering Fragments — The shards from the broken ice will stun nearby targets for 15 seconds and causes them to bleed 10% damage in health every 1 second within the duration | Heroic

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png Backlash — If an ice block is broken near Xel'nas he will be stunned for 5 seconds and take an increase damage to all attacks within the duration nearby targets near the ice block will also suffer the same effects of Shattering frost

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png Flow of power — Temporary redirects the flow of power decreasing all nearby targets damage and healing taken by 30% then creates a powerful ice beam directing at a random player that inflicts massive frost damage upon those who stand in the way

Phase 2 - Frozen

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png Hurricane — A channeled spell that creates a hurricane within the area inflicting massive damage every second and reducing casting speed by 75% for 15 seconds

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png The Eye — The eye of the hurricane moves around the room anything caught in the eye is completely frozen the entire encounter | Heroic

Phase 3 - Death Binds You

Inv elemental mote shadow01.png Damnation — Creates a pool from the depths of Ny'alotha itself summoning dark energy within the entire room inflicting massive damage every 1 second until a certain amount of players sacrifice themselves inside the pool to stop it. All healing taken is reduced by 100% in addition

A fight like the Mal'ganis stage in WC3 where you have to purge (or save depending on story) a set number of villagers before the 'boss' does the opposite.
The fight could be made more complex with the boss jumping into the raid in the middle of the fight sort of like an intermission. on Hard Mode, the bos could have some assistants who basically give you a fixed and tighter 'enrage timer'.

Another idea is a 2 boss fight with both having an add mechanic - one has the ragnaros type mechanic with adds coming to it, another has the elegon type mechanic with adds going away - each phase will occur separately, no overlap on normal mode. Hard mode could have overlapping phases but some buffs/ debuffs to compensate for the combination. To control the trigger for each phase, the mechanic could be adjusted to trigger, say on each boss's HP percentage.

Thats all I have atm. I do like gauntlet type mechanics (Pt of Saron Trash before Scourgelord Tyrannus) or phasing mechanics (teleporting to different rooms or phases)

Floor is nothing but lava, and there are many floating platforms in the room. Everybody gets a fireball kinda spell which is instant cast and has to spam that spell while jumping platforms constantly. Close enrage timer, if you miss more than 20 GCD's in 10 minutes, you wont make it. If somebody falls into the lava, gg...

A fight where you have to play a PVE version of capturing control points (Arathi Basin, etc):
- There are 4 points, 2 requiring tanks, the other 2 not
- you have to maintain certain amounts of pressure at each point to gain the required points
- infinite waves of mobs come through
- you will generally try to keep 3 of the points in order to gain your score faster, particularly skilled raids can pull off all 4
- if one of your points is lost, you can still potentially win due to your earlier point lead if you maintain a 2/2 split, BUT, every point that the NPCs capture buffs the NPCs at all camps by a certain amount, making it harder on the remaining groups, as well as drawing out the time until victory
- heroic introduces enemy rushes where the NPCs periodically rush a capture point with a series of double waves, this generally requires that group to either float or request backup, the NPCs also never rush a point that your raid have not chosen to occupy, and those particular spots that the NPCs have not chosen to occupy become undermanned while the NPCs are rushing
- also on heroic, once your raid earns enough victory points to win you have to deal with the NPCs final stand at their base with a boss mob

A fight where you play out a game of tower defense:
- players all have a set amount of currency for placing defenses on the gamefield (done through a vehicle console)
- players can give their currency rights to other players if they don't wish to participate in the minigame, tightening the number of players who have control
- players have to go through 5 waves of trash and 1 boss
- each wave has a 1.5min enrage timer (then they despawn, withholding currency from the players), boss wave has a self contained 4 min enrage timer (then wipes raid)
- each wave goes through the defenses first, then players have to personally fight the remainder
- players have the time it takes for the wave to get through the defense maze to place further defenses, players can also start the fight on their own terms
- trash waves get exponentially more difficult to clear/survive
- tower control plays the largest part of mob killing, but the final skirmish with the adds once they reach the players is a good way to snag some more currency to make the later waves easier, this makes it such that you can still overgear the fight to an extent if your raid isn't very good with the tower optimisation, and can do the fight undergeared through very smart tower usage
- the better you do each trash wave, it flows on to making the final boss easier through having more tower damage/debuffing/etc done
- on heroic, certain mobs will attempt to take down your towers, a small team of players will have to be delegated to keeping these adds from doing too much damage to towers personally
- also on heroic, that small team of players will have to deal with multiple minibosses by themselves during the boss wave which attempt to assist the boss by buffing it periodically and aiding its run through the tower maze

A large multiphase titan boss fight (aka sargeras) played out on a massive scale where players spend a portion of the fight increased to massive sizes.

This sounds badass actually.. I think it would be cool if a enemy player could queue for an anti-raid.. Were a 5 man group could que and randomly appear mid-fight and try to wipe a raid. They have something like that in Age of Wushu. A different F2P MMO

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Originally Posted by laskgugy

It gets harder as the fight progresses.

THat could be cool, as a boss takes the damage.. All damage done is 100% reflected and spread out back to the raid in a massive AoE.

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A ghostbusters themed fight. A demon spawns and says to think of the first thing that comes to mind. Then the staypuff marshmallow man, the size of Supremus spawns. haha and players have an orb ability to channel on the boss, and if they cross the streams it's an instant wipe.

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Originally Posted by Twoflower

Jump and run boss

Floor is nothing but lava, and there are many floating platforms in the room. Everybody gets a fireball kinda spell which is instant cast and has to spam that spell while jumping platforms constantly. Close enrage timer, if you miss more than 20 GCD's in 10 minutes, you wont make it. If somebody falls into the lava, gg...

Haha you couldmake this a multipase encounter.. Where in phase one a boss is tanked on a carpet, and the raid is standing on giant sofas.. Then they randomly get phased and the carpet is lava and random sofa cushions are the platforms.. Then the people who didn't phase watch ppl hop from cushion to cushion, when they are really avoiding lava. HAHA genius

Woah I need a sec to read through OP but I just wanna say that if I ever designed a raid encounter I'd be so mad if they implemented it in flex or LFR or normal. Anything I design I want to be H.A.R.D.

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My dream boss encounter is like. Actually having a choice to make. Like everything is tuned so you could do things either wayan d have to experiment which one is better.

It'd be something like you have mini-bosses/adds that you have to take out as you work your way up to the real boss. So one tank, one group of DPS, and some healers stick to one mini boss while the other half of the raid starts on another, and they keep alternating mini bosses. Oh and the raids are separated physically so there's none of this "everyone stack" bullshit, the tanks have to keep mini bosses apart from each other.

Then uhhhh something with the main boss having to do with the way you handle him and/or the mini boss that creates a choice.

I always wanted something that was multilevel, like Vael's room in BWL, with the raid split up to deal with all the mechanics of the encounter. Pylons up top need to be managed properly so the ground team doesn't get wiped out, something like that, but where everyone has access to each level (unlike something akin to Thorim).

I also envisioned Flame Leviathan as something completely different before Ulduar came out. Go in with our vehicles, slowly take over small bases and gain access to turrets and other types of vehicles, being able to micromanage resources to choose what to build, shutting down the four towers along the way (or not), etc. Sadly, it just turned into a "zerg everything down on our way to the boss!" type of encounter.

I still want a raid that involves both the horde and alliance to some capacity. A 20 horde and 20 alliance combined raid team would work for something like LFR I guess since it's just random matchmaking anyway, but the idea falls completely flat in every other mode.

I would design a boss where the room would suddenly be flooded. So you had to fight 3D.

Orbs of badstuff would act like submerged mines and give nearby players a debuff. This debuff would increase attackdamage, but would make people more vulnerable to the mines or other stuff the boss throws at you. Or even the debuff would make your time to stay underwater more limited. Or maybe both!
The mines would be able to move a bit randomly.

Uncurable debuff that has a 1 or 2 minute reset and stacked.

Meanwhile the boss would have to be interrupted. Taunt immune but certain stacks would be on the tank for tanking the boss X times. We would need 3 tanks in order to perform the fight correctly with a gap of 5 seconds between tankswaps. Some guilds would take 4 tanks. The damage on the tanks would not be as hight that you'd needed a full geared tank. 2 off(spec)tanks would not be a problem.

While not submerged the mines are in a pattern on the floor. There are lazers coming from mine to mine... There will be a pattern in which the lazers are "offline" for a brief moment in order to make the raid move around.

I have an idea for a boss encounter which involves the mechanics and playstyle which is more closely associated with a priest of actual gameplay. My idea works like this:

Boss Area:
A large circular room, in the centre of which lies the boss herself. All priestly looking and shit.

Resource:
Evangelism - The boss has not a mana bar, but a bar of evangelism, which is added to by certain abilities the boss will cast which are unavoidable, certain abilities which are avoidable, and certain abilities which are unavoidable but can be reduced by good play. The boss can have a maximum of 100 evangelism, and every 45 seconds will use an ability based upon how much evangelism she has, or upon reaching 100 evangelism in a spell called Divine Fury.

Phases:
The fight is a 2 phase alternating one, which alternates every 2:25 coinciding with the final use of "Archangel" for that phase. Upon this transition, the boss will enter one of the two phases, depending on which one she is not currently in.

Phase One: ArchangelDuring the Archangel phase, the boss will take 25% reduced damage, and deal 50% increased Holy Damage. And makes use of the following abilities:

Holy Fire (Instant) - Cast on the priestess' current tank every 10 seconds, dealing a very high amount of Holy Damage and applying a debuff which increases holy damage taken by 100%, and generating X Evangelism. This ability requires a tank switch.

Smite (Uninterruptible, 1 Second Cast) - Deals fairly low damage as a filler to her current tank and does not generate evangelism.

Holy Sear (Uninterruptible, Channelled, until the next Holy Fire) - Cast as a filler on any raid members who are closer than 5 yards from one another. This deals a non-negligible amount of damage to all players within 15 yards, and generates one evangelism per raid member hit, per second until the cast ends.

Holy Apparition (Instant) - The priestess summons a holy apparition which will pursue a random targetted ranged raid member until killed. For every second that it is active, it will generate 1 evangelism towards the priestess. If it reaches the targetted raid member, it will deal an overwhelming amount of damage to them until they are out of melee range or they are dead, at which time it will find a new focus.

Divine Fury (Every 45 seconds) - The priestess unleashes the holy energy stored within in a spell based on how much Evangelism the priestess has available.

25 Evangelism - Void Tendrils - roots all raid members in place for 15 seconds or until the roots are killed. (This would be problematic for those kiting apparitions, so not so negligible)
50 Evangelism - Power Infusion - Increases spell haste by 25% for 30 seconds.
75 Evangelism - Halo - Unleashes a ring of holy energy which expands rapidly around her, growing in potency as it travels dealing damage to all enemies (around 30% of maximum health-ish) and healing to all allies (apparitions) that it encounters. Healing and damage is reduced in proportion to proximity to the boss.
100 Evangelism - Divine Hymn - Heals the Priestess for 5% of her maximum health per second for 6 seconds and deals 10% of player maximum health per second for 6 seconds.

Phase 2: From Darkness Comes Light
During this phase, the priestess makes use of Shadowform, which increases shadow damage dealt by 50% and spell haste by 25%. This phase is more of a high damage phase, whereas the previous is more of a recovery phase. She will make use of the following abilities.

Mind Blast (Instant) - Cast roughly every 10 seconds, this ability mimics the holy fire of the light-phase and applies a debuff in the same way. Handled the same. Grants Evangelism
Mind Flay (Channelled) - A filler, cast on random raid members which deals low shadow damage. However, the damage of Mind Flay is increased upon a member by 50% for each of the Priestess' DoT effects active on the target:

Shadow Word: Pain (Instant) - Cast every 5 seconds on around 6/7 raid members in 10M. A powerful, dispellable dot which deals a moderate amount of shadow damage.
Vampiric Touch (Instant) - Cast every 7 seconds on around 4 raid members, a second dispellable dot which deals a moderate amount of shadow damage.

Mind Sear (Channelled): As the holy sear in the previous phase.
Shadowy Apparition (Instant) - The priestess summons a holy apparition which will pursue a random targetted ranged raid member until killed. For every second that it is active, it will generate 1 evangelism towards the priestess. If it reaches the targetted raid member, it will deal an overwhelming amount of damage to them until they are out of melee range or they are dead, at which time it will find a new focus.

Divine Fury (Every 45 seconds) - The priestess unleashes the dark evangelism energy stored within in a spell based on how much Evangelism the priestess has available.

25 Evangelism - Insanity - Any raid member with both Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active upon them become afflicted by a phantom devouring plague, dealing high damage to them for 5 seconds. This effect is undispellable
50 Evangelism - Power Infusion - Increases spell haste by 25% for 30 seconds.
75 Evangelism - Halo - Unleashes a ring of shadow energy which expands rapidly around her, growing in potency as it travels dealing damage to all enemies (around 30% of maximum health-ish) and healing to all allies (apparitions) that it encounters. Healing and damage is reduced in proportion to proximity to the boss.
100 Evangelism - Dark Hymn - A channelled spell for 8 seconds which will deal massively overwhelming damage to the raid (around the mark of 30% of maximum health per second) which would be designed to pretty much cause a wipe, unless you had some rather immense healing CDs available. It would be able to be healed through potentially, but something the raid would want to avoid at all costs.

Edit: If More than 5 players (10M) or 12 players (25M) are within 8 yards of the boss, she will cast psychic scream, fearing them all for 5 seconds. And if no players are within melee range, she will cast Leap of Faith, dragging all member to her, and dealing very high Holy/Shadow damage to them.

Last edited by Healeze; 2013-10-08 at 12:53 PM.
Reason: too lazy to format

I'd love to have an encounter against one of the warcraft main baddies, like sargeras.
To make this fight feel as epic as it should and make Sargeras as powerful as he is,
you would have to work together with another guild on your server to take him down.